Political sportswriter Dave Zirin speaks to press ahead of documentary screening

American political sportswriter Dave Zirin spoke to reporters ahead of his public events in Dublin and Belfast this week.

Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation, host of multiple sports podcasts and author of 11 books about the politics of sports. He is also the creator of the documentary Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL, which will be screened tonight at Trinity College Dublin's Hamilton Building at 6:00 p.m..

His visit was prompted by the upcoming NFL game in Croke Park on September 28. Zirin and the Irish organisations aimed to voice their opposition of the partnership, citing connections between American sports, Israeli sportswashing and racism in sport.

"The NFL has a slogan that they proudly brandish, and that slogan is 'football is America'," Zirin said.

"I think the people of Ireland have a civic responsibility to ask themselves, if 'football is America' and we are inviting this sport into our country at a cost of €10 million, what is America like? What are we really inviting, if 'football is America' and what is happening in America right now is a full-scale slide into authoritarianism?"

In a panel hosted by Sport Against Racism Ireland, Zirin was joined by David Hickey, transplant surgeon and former Gaelic footballer, and Rebecca O'Keeffe, organiser and activist. Irish Sport for Palestine, Dubs for Palestine and Insaka Ireland were also involved in organising Zirin's visit.

O'Keeffe said the organisations aimed to critique the decision of "the GAA, our anti-imperial, anti-colonial, indigenous sporting organisation" to partner and host "the hyper-militarised NFL."

"The GAA has no shared values with the NFL," said Hickey, who is a three-time All-Ireland winner.

"And as you will see from Dave Zirin's documentary and from his talk, the NFL is driven by profit, profit only— and promoting the American way of peace, democracy and freedom throughout the world, and I say that with a smile because you know what I really mean."

While clarifying that his use of the word "football" referred to the American variety, Zirin told a brief anecdote about a Chilean friend who calls the sport "fútbol imperialismo."

"The NFL is not a bystander to what's happening in the U.S., they are actually an aggravator of it," Zirin said.

"They're not here to plant a tree. They're here to plant a flag. The same way that they planted a flag on the moon in 1969 as if it was theirs, it's the same thing with what they want to do to Ireland."

Zirin has been a longtime supporter of the Palestinian and Black liberation movements, something he said his lawyer warned may cause him trouble when returning to the U.S..

"Think about that for a second: a lawyer thinks that I could be pulled out of a customs line and interrogated or maybe even held for thought crimes against the National Football League," Zirin said.

"That's bloody bonkers. It's an absolute honour to be here, because the NFL see themselves as sort of a global authoritarian operation and I see me coming here as, in an extremely modest way, trying to contribute to a global resistance."

He often speaks and writes about the role of athletes and sports media in social movements and in politics in general, particularly in his book The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World.

"It's been an evolution to a point where separating sports and politics is an impossibility in the United States," said Zirin, citing the upcoming UFC match planned by the White House to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. constitution as one example.

"Another kind of politics we saw in 2016-2020 was the Black Lives Matter movement expressing itself strongly in the world of sports, most symbolised by Colin Kaepernick taking a knee after a summer of tremendous tumult when two people were killed by police. For someone like Colin Kaepernick, he felt like he needed to do something to show visible dissent. And then that exploded throughout the NFL."

Given that Kaepernick's protest occurred in 2016, Hot Press asked Zirin how American sport and the culture surrounding it has been affected since Trump took office this year.

"The starting point was [Trump] being the first President ever to be at the Super Bowl," Zirin said.

"For decades, there's been a bipartisan consensus from [American politicians] that sports is not their space and it's actually a space to come together. And what our current president did was to say, 'No, this is my space.' And if I get cheered when I'm there, that's political power. That's raw power to get those cheers when I'm there.

He described how the NFL and Trump "were at war in 2016 and 2020," as Trump called for players to be fired for their activism and players responded by refusing to participate in the traditional White House visit after the Super Bowl.

"But we've moved from resistance to acquiescence," Zirin said.

"A couple of months ago, there was a widely published photo of the NFL commissioner doing the thumbs up next to Trump with big smiles on their faces. You might think that they mended that bridge that was so intense in the first term, and yet there was no apology.

"It's just about defeat. Once you are defeated, you are on his side. There is no, 'let's try to meet in the middle and figure out common ground.' It's always, 'you can either come to my ground or you're an enemy.' And that's really intense right now in my country. It's created a situation that is that's really on a knife-edge, and it's nothing that I recognise. It's nothing I would recommend for any other country on Earth, and it's coming to Ireland like a locomotive where the brake doesn't work."

He concluded with a reminder of the NFL's slogan "football is America," adding, "For Ireland, looking at this, the slogan should be 'something wicked this way comes.'"

The panel was asked what concrete steps could be taken to oppose the NFL in Ireland. O'Keeffe explained that "bringing Dave [Zirin] over was its first step" in opposing the game, and that to show visible dissent, the participating Irish organisations are planning a demonstration outside the stadium.

"We're going to have presence and noise and as much media as we can," O'Keeffe said.

"We'll have our banners and our community outside the stadium, and we'll be calling to cancel future games."

Zirin pointed to Kaepernick's act of "visible dissent" as an example, saying people who see the partnership "as an incursion, not just of a sport, but of where US politics is right now" must demonstrate.

"It's important for people to be outside the stadium with banners so people know they're not alone in wondering why Croke Park, a place that until recently was entirely about the preservation of Irish culture and Irish sports, is now bringing in the most un-Irish culture and un-Irish sport that you could possibly imagine," Zirin said.

Hickey added that while it is too late to have the match cancelled, there is still time to fight the corporate partnership.

"We are going to be very strong on this, in the GAA," Hickey said.

"We are going to advertise to people not to buy tickets and make sure this is a financial slop. That is the only language that these people deserve and understand."

Hot Press asked the panel about the presence of sports figures in politics, particularly after former Dublin GAA manager Jim Gavin won the Fianna Fáil nomination for Irish presidential race last week.

O'Keeffe explained that action in the worlds of both sports and politics is all part of the plan, as they are "inherently entwined."

"We'll be putting pressure on all kinds of levers," said O'Keeffe, adding, "So if it's through sports events, if it's through a boycott of corporate sponsors, if it's through writing to politicians, we'll be activating the already mobilised communities."

"An Evening with Dave Zirin" will screen Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL followed by a Q&A with Zirin at two free public events in Ireland.

The Dublin screening will take place at 6:00 p.m. tonight, September 16, at the Joly Theatre in Trinity College's Hamilton Building.

A second screening will take place at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, September 17, at Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich in Belfast.